As we’ve just celebrated Halloween, it’s only fitting that my return to “Big Worlds on Small Screens” focus on a good old-fashioned ghost story. Marchlands aired back in 2011, a three-part miniseries that spans the lives of three different families living in the same house across five decades.

In 1960, Ruth Bowen is a grief-stricken mother mourning the death of her daughter, Alice. Though the police have deemed her drowning an accident, there are several strange inconsistencies in the story that makes Ruth think there might have been foul play. Why did her usually obedient daughter run away? And where’s her duffel coat and crucifix?

In 1987, Eddie and Helen Maynard move into Marchlands with their two children: surly teenager Scott and precocious daughter Amy. The latter is soon raising eyebrows with her talk of an “imaginary friend” called Alice, to the point where the Maynards grow concerned that she has some kind of mental disorder.

Finally, Mark Ashburn and his pregnant partner Nisha Parekh arrive in 2010, only for Nisha to start uncovering clues that the old household was once inhabited by a little girl called Alice…

The complete cast, each in the same room across three different periods

It’s an innovative premise, with the stories of the three families intertwining across the course of each episode, and the audience being privy to a gradual uncovering of answers when it comes to the death of little Alice.

Much of its intrigue comes from the reappearance of supporting characters across all three strands of the plot (played by different actors of varying ages) and how they can add fresh – or old – insight into what really happened when Alice died.

As well as the ghost story, it also explores the domestic lives of each family – issues such as bereavement, strained marriages, old love affairs, the generational gap, the worries of parenthood –and everyone from the writers to the actors to the costume and set designers clearly had a great time capturing the décor, fashion, technology and social mores of each period.

Helen tries to figure out what’s wrong with her daughter

The cast is pretty rock-solid, with the most familiar face being Alex Kingston (Doctor Who fans will recognize her as River Song) and some surprisingly good child actors.

That said, it’s not a hugely suspenseful or frightening ghost story. Heck, Mark and Nisha barely even notice they’re being haunted until well into the fourth episode. Instead, Marchlands is more concerned with the differences between the different time periods, and how unexplained occurrences can have an adverse effect on family life.

It probably deserves at least two watches just to catch all the clues and foreshadowing strewn throughout, but be prepared for a rather low-key haunting. This is more of a mystery than a chills-and-thrills ghost story, but it’s still a rewarding and engrossing drama.

Next Time: The Others

We continue with our spooky theme and take a look at The Others, a short-lived supernatural series that may have been cancelled prematurely, but still had some ideas worth exploring.
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About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens

Rebecca won this year’s Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Fan Writer, for writing including Big Worlds On Small Screens.